NurtureStore » Spring

Spring play dough recipe – cheep, cheep!

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:00:38 +0000

The inspiration for our spring chicken play dough comes from the clutch of ten eggs which have been resident in the girls school for a week. The eggs have been in an incubator in the reception class but every child in the school has been in to visit, to hear the chicks cheeping from inside the shells and to see the eggs wobbling and the first cracks appear. Then, most exciting of all, the chicks hatched, some brown, some yellow but all very fluffy. Great inspiration to talk about spring, bring out our favourite easy play dough recipe for some sensory play and make some chicks of our own.

Yellow play dough recipe for spring chicks

We made a batch of yellow play dough using our favourite no cook play dough recipe. If you’ve never made home made play dough before our easy play dough recipe master class takes you through the recipe step by step.

Then we raided the craft cupboard to find our chick essentials: foam triangles for beaks, straws for feet, and feathers, feathers, feathers.

The children wanted to add some nests to their play so found some yarn to make their chickens a home.

Some birds are tidier than others – B said this swan’s nest could do with a bit of spring cleaning.

Just like at school, the eggs hatched out and we had some baby play dough chicks.

The children never tire of play dough, and ringing the changes with different themes to match each season gives us the opportunity to introduce different ideas and language every time we play. Play dough is great for sensory play and manipulating the dough is so good to build strength and dexterity in fingers, developing fine motor skills. If you’ve never made your own play dough, why not follow the master class and give it a try?

More spring activities

For lambs, bunnies, daffodils and more have a look at our kids spring activities.

And for different play dough ideas including a space theme, under the sea and ice cream varieties take a look at all our play dough recipe ideas.

Heirloom Easter eggs

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:00:20 +0000

As each new season arrives I look forward to the time when we take out the box of decorations to match the new celebrations. This weekend our Easter box came down and we took out our heirloom Easter eggs ready to decorate our Easter tree.

Easter represents new life and these decorations remind me each year of when my own little chicks were born, because they are made from some of the girls’ baby clothes. The colours and motifs on their babygrows and little dresses seemed such a good match to the theme of Easter that we used them to sew a set of decorations. Here’s how we made them.

How to make Heirloom Easter Eggs

As with all of our sewing projects, we kept things nice and simple:

:: cut out two matching egg shapes from the fabrics

:: add decorations on top. We cut out some of the hearts, flowers and ladybirds from the baby clothes and used fabric glue to stick them on the front of the eggs

:: then we stitched around the outside using a simple running stitch. We popped some cotton wool inside just before we completed stitching all the way round and made a loop at the top so we could hang the eggs.

The heirloom Easter eggs are a mix and match of the girls baby clothes, with a few extra feathers added here and there.

They’ll be hung on our Easter tree, which sits in the hallway to welcome everyone as they arrive. The tree itself is made from twisted branches gathered from the local park and placed in a large vase. Pussy willow and forsythia make beautiful Easter trees too. We use our branches all year round and change the decorations to match the season – you might have seen our Valentine gratitude tree and our New Year angel wish tree.

How do you decorate your home for Easter?

Easter bunny craft

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:55:43 +0000

Looking for a kids Easter bunny craft idea? Here are five different ideas you might like to try – all easy to do and all super cute!

Easter bunny craft #1: rabbit mask

Here’s an idea from my colleague Lesley, which we used at creche this week.

Cut out a rabbit face shape from a piece of card, with lovely big bunny ears. Provide pink noses and ear shapes, black wool for whiskers and black pens or pencils for drawing on eyes. Invite the children to glue, stick and draw to make their own bunny rabbit craft. You could turn this into a mask too – punch eye holes and attach an elastic thread at the sides and the children can wear their creations.

It’s good to remember that kids crafts don’t all have to turn out to be ’perfect’. Even if you offer the children the same basic materials it’s great to encourage them to make their own mark, use their imagination and create their own take on an Easter bunny. At creche this week, some children wanted to stick, stick, stick – and others want to draw. Some enjoyed the process of spreading the glue and placing the materials in ‘alternative’ locations! Others were very particular about making their Easter craft looks as much like a real bunny as they could. One child sat for a whole hour adding lots of detailed extras around their bunny – carrots to eat, baby bunnies under ground, lots of kisses and decorations.

More Easter bunny craft ideas

Bunny #2 is a kids Easter recipe lollipop – with a printable recipe card for you to use.

Bunny #3 is a junk model Easter bunny craft – and has a flower meadow to play in

Bunny #4 is made from printing with carrots (of course!)

Bunny #5 is a decorated egg craft

Are you making an Easter rabbit craft this year? Share an link in the comments!

Kids Easter recipe: Easter bunny lollipops

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:54:50 +0000

What’s Easter without bunnies and chocolate? This Easter bunny lollipop recipe combines both and is great kids Easter recipe.

I’m joining in a debate with Mari and Amy over at Parentdish to find out what’s your favourite Easter treat: roast lamb, hot cross buns or chocolate rabbits. I need you to head over to Parentdish and vote for the bunny! And while you’re there you can enter their competition to win a family holiday at Alton Towers.

Easter bunny lollipop recipe

Here’s a step by step guide to making these super sweet lollipops, with a printable recipe card at the end. If you like this idea I need your vote please. Click here and give me your vote to say Chocolate Easter bunnies are the best Easter treat.

To make these Easter bunny lollipops:

Put 25g butter and 170g white (or pink) marshmallows in a large pan. Heat gently and stir until all the marshmallows have melted.

Add 120g rice crispy cereal and stir gently until all the cereal is coated with the marshmallow mixture.

Line a baking tin (ours was about 25cm square) with baking paper and then fill with the rice crispy mixture. You need the layer to be fairly thick (2cm+) so there is room to push in the lollipop stick later. Flatten down the surface with the back of a spoon and pop in the fridge to chill and harden.

Once the rice crispy mix has cooled, cut out your rabbit shapes with a cookie cutter. We found this quantity of ingredients made 10 rabbits, but it will depend on the size of your cookie cutter.

At this time of year there are lots of rabbit shaped cookies cutters available in supermarkets and craft stores but if you can’t get hold of one you can still make a rabbit with a round metal cookie cutter – like we did. Just squeeze your cutter into an egg shape and you have a great shape to make your rabbit’s face. Use a knife to cut out some ear shapes, wet the ends and the marshmallow in the mixture will stick the ears onto the bunny’s head. Carefully push a lollipop stick into your bunny to make your lollipop.

Now to add the chocolate – this is an Easter bunny after all! Use chocolate chips for the bunnies eyes – stick them on with a little blob of icing, and use some extra white icing to pipe on whiskers and a mouth. Using little tubes of writing icing makes it easier for the kids to do this bit. We added a pink-coloured puffed rice sweet as a nose – but you could use a chocolate chip if you prefer.

Finally, add some chocolate to your bunnies ears. Bring a little water to the boil in a saucepan and sit a glass jar on the top. Put around 100g white or milk chocolate in the bowl and melt it – then quickly dip the ends of your bunnies ears in the melted chocolate to give them a choccy coating. Sit the bunny on some greaseproof paper until the chocolate sets and then your bunnies are ready to eat or give away as Easter gifts.

You can also use this recipe to make Easter egg lollipops, adding some chocolate buttons or icing on top as decorations.

Recipe card – and vote for this bunny!

Like this idea? Print off you recipe card here and show the bunny some love by voting for me here. Go on, go on – one click is all it takes! Go on, go on – let the bunny win!!

And enter the competition to win a family holiday at Alton Towers while you’re there.

#sponsored

25 Easter crafts and activities

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:00:30 +0000

Whether you’re looking for egg decorating ideas, bunny rabbit crafts or fun ways to decorate your home these 25 Easter crafts and activities have some great ideas for you to try with your children. Click the links and get some Easter inspiration.